


Come Home, You Who Are Wandering

by WanderingTheRailroads



Category: Hyouka & Kotenbu Series
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Inspired by Real Events, Mystery, Not Happy, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Tragedy, Whump, inspired by the KyoAni fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24980050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingTheRailroads/pseuds/WanderingTheRailroads
Summary: One fine day, the former Classics Club members see their interwoven lives unravel when tragedy strikes. In the wake of this loss, Satoshi returns to his hometown seeking the answer to a mystery. But Chitanda and Oreki are searching for answers of their own too. Will they find what they're looking for?
Relationships: Chitanda Eru/Oreki Houtarou, Fukube Satoshi/Ibara Mayaka
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Things Fall Apart, the Centre Cannot Hold

**Author's Note:**

> It's...uh, well tbh this fic might strike a nerve or two. 
> 
> It's pretty much a reaction to the KyoAni fire after all, as well as Yasuhiro Takemoto (the director of Hyouka) dying in that disaster.
> 
> Was supposed to publish it last year, a month or two after the fire, but the original oneshot turned out incredibly messy and rushed in terms of pacing, so I figured it'd be better as a chaptered fic with more room for exploration of their psyches. Also, I was working on other stuff anyway.

One fine day, as if a child were tugging at a tapestry’s loose thread, the former Classics Club members see their interwoven lives unravel when tragedy strikes.

\--

It’s a Monday evening, with the sun burning orange outside the window, and Oreki’s standing in the kitchen of his rather modest house chopping up vegetables for dinner. His wife Chitanda bustles about him, her attention divided between checking on the curry boiling in the pot and breading a cutlet.

“Has Togashi sent you the accounts?”, she asks with her back turned to Oreki, eyes focused on measuring out the precise level of pepper and salt for the cutlet’s coating. Oreki mouths a soft ‘yeah’, adding, “They’re kinda messy.”

“Oh no. Sorry, Oreki-kun.”

He grunts, sliding the knife blade through yet another piece of zucchini. “Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault. I’ll clean them up later.”

“No, that’s not right”, she says indignantly. “I’ll lecture him tomorrow.”

“Sure, go ahead.” Oreki drops the chopped zucchini into a bowl, setting it aside before moving on to the peppers. As he shakes the seeds out, he stops and sniffs the air. The curry pot is overflowing.

“Hey, watch the stove!” he shouts. On the other side of the kitchen, Chitanda yelps and rushes over to lower the heat, but not before the bubbling pot splashes curry droplets all over their stovetop. Chitanda reaches for the paper towels on a nearby rack then stops, frowning.

“We’re out of paper towels”, she says, opening a cupboard to check for more. No luck there either.

“Want me to drop by the store?” he asks.

“It’s okay, I’ll do it.” She sets the stirring spoon down, heading for the living room to grab her keys.

While passing through, Chitanda notices Oreki left the TV on; it’s airing some program about dream jobs. She grabs the remote to turn it off, but hesitates as the program comes on.

‘And next up on _Dream Job: True or Not?,_ let’s talk about every kid’s dream, becoming a mangaka!’ The host gestures animatedly, and a dozen colorful lights flare behind him. ‘Is it a dream job? A nightmare? Here we’ve got legendary artist Akashi Akaza, author of The Confession Wars, to talk about it. Come on up, Akashi-san!’

A chubby man lumbers upstage and sits down opposite the host’s desk.

‘Thanks, Goro’, he says, taking the mic. ‘Honestly? I’m not so sure. Lotsa people say, ‘oh yeah, being an artist is fun and games.’ Well, it’s certainly fun, but there’s also loads of suffering in the mix. It’s-’

“It’s like the art won’t come out. I’m constipated, but up here.” Mayaka grimaces and taps her forehead, leaning back against the bare wall of her apartment as Oreki and Chitanda watch. In her lap is a sketchbook which remains empty despite Mayaka’s attempts to fill it with ideas. Fresh out of university, she’s a rising star of a mangaka. Her first one-volume story was a smash hit, but now she’s stuck with the dreaded monster that haunts every author: _writer’s block._

“Yeah, I know how that feels”, Oreki says, seated backwards and resting his chin on the chair’s back, observing her with a blank owl-like gaze. Mayaka glares back at him.

“Shut up, Oreki, you have it easy. Your brain’s a bullet train innit?” she replies.

“It’s okay, Mayaka-chan, I’m like that too sometimes”, Chitanda says. She sits down beside Mayaka, placing a hand on her back.

“See, Oreki? She gets me. Unlike you.” Mayaka jabs a finger in his direction.

Oreki shrugs. “Strange minds think alike.”

“Should you really be calling your future wife ‘strange’? Ah, whatever. I’ll just die alone and penniless!” Sighing aloud, Mayaka flops down onto the bed and lets her sketchbook fall as well, covering her face like a corpse’s veil.

She lies in that position for all of thirty seconds before a knock on the door interrupts her pity party. Oreki walks over and opens it, revealing Satoshi. His hands are heavily laden with plastic bags full of soft drinks, which he sets down as he enters the apartment.

“I’m back!”, Satoshi calls out cheerily. He stops, noticing Mayaka on the bed. “Oh, what happened? Are you dead??.”

Grumbling, Mayaka tosses the sketchbook at Satoshi who catches it deftly with a grin on his face. He laughs.

\--

Chitanda smiles wistfully, pushing the memory aside. Mayaka has always loved art, and Chitanda admires that, but it breaks her heart to see Mayaka burning out in pursuit of that goal. As she moves to turn the TV off, Oreki’s voice calls out from the doorway behind her.

“You okay?”, he asks, wondering why she’s standing there unmoving. “I thought you were going to buy towels.”

Chitanda shakes her head and taps the OFF button. “Sorry. I- The TV show reminded me of Mayaka.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow. She opens her mouth to explain, but a loud rumble from her stomach cuts the words off. Chitanda flushes light red.

“I’ll tell you about it later”, she says.

“Um, I really, really miss Mayaka”, is the first thing that tumbles from her mouth as she sits down across from Oreki at the dinner table. A simple meal of curry over pork cutlets accompanied by farmland-harvested vegetables is laid out before them, with miso soup on the side. She skewers a small piece of cutlet and slices it up further on her plate, chewing thoroughly before continuing. “Don’t you?”

“I guess”, Oreki replies softly. “Can’t be helped though, she’s busy with her new manga.”

“Her fourth, right? A Dream of Summer, Sea Star, The Town, and…and…” She counts down on her fingers and furrows her brow, trying to remember the name of Mayaka’s new story.

“ ’Wander’. It’s a long series this time”, Oreki says, sipping on his soup. “They’re planning to adapt it into an anime.”

“Is it worth the pain?”

He shoots her a puzzled look. “Huh?”

“I mean making art like Mayaka does.” She grabs his hands and leans across the table, their faces almost touching. “I’m curious.”

 _Just like old times_ , he muses, staring deep into her large purple eyes. Oreki clears his throat and replies, “I guess you could say, ’Pain is inevitable, suffering’s optional.’ ”

“Eh? Aren’t they the same thing?” Chitanda tilts her head, looking every bit like an eager, curious puppy, but Oreki resists the temptation of pointing that out.

“Not really. I mean, it’s like someone who enjoys eating a spicy curry, or a woman in labour. They’re in pain, but there’s no suffering because they feel it’s worth it.”

Her eyes grow even wider. “Wow, Oreki-kun, you’re so wise.”

“It’s a quote from Haruki Murakami, actually.”

“Oh.” Chitanda deflates a little, letting go of his hands and pulling back.

Besides”, he says, “I still prefer to avoid pain anyway. Too much energy wasted.”

Chitanda’s hands fly to her mouth, and she covers it to stifle her amused giggle upon hearing Oreki’s words. He frowns, staring at her.

“What? Do I sound weird? Do I have rice on my mouth?” Oreki asks, touching the edges of his lips with his fingers and finding nothing. Chitanda shakes her head, still smiling.

“Nah. It’s just…you haven’t changed much, Oreki-kun, compared to high school.”

“Energy-saving is my way of life”, he says matter-of-factly, turning his attention back to the meal.

They continue eating, making small talk here and there about work, about the farmlands, about Satoshi who proposed to Mayaka barely two months ago. As Oreki’s going on about a mystery that happened in high school, and his unorthodox solution to it, the phone in his pocket makes a soft _ting_.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Chitanda asks.

“Nah, probably just someone from work”, he says, waving dismissively.

“Or it could be a news alert.”

Oreki shrugs and goes back to finishing the remnants of his meal. “The fate of the world can wait.”

When they’re done with dinner, the plates cleaned and put away, Chitanda wanders over to the living room, grabs _A Brief History of African Civilizations_ from the nearby shelf, and flops down on their couch. Oreki walks past her, headed for the stairs.

“I’ll go get the account sheets”, he says.

“Okay”, she replies absent-mindedly, lost in exploring Ta-Seti of Northern Nubia. He walks up to the 2nd floor and enters his study, looking around briefly at the deluge of papers plastering its walls and whiteboards. Like some sort of detective’s lair, only belonging to an account manager in the farmlands of Kamiyama.

Oreki picks up Togashi’s file from the desk and is about to head back down, when he notices the Classics Club picture mounted on the far wall. It’s a photo from their 3rd year. He’s seen it hundreds of times, but something makes him stop now and observe the framed portrait.

The four of them _(he never could get anyone else to join, except Tomoko for a brief time)_ are standing in their school field, with Oreki frowning -as always- while Chitanda stands beside him, staring curiously into the camera like a deer in headlights. Satoshi messes with Mayaka’s hair, and she hits back with a jab in his ribs. The moment is frozen in eternity, held together by invisible red threads.

He runs his free hand over the portrait and pulls it back coated in a thin film of dust. Frowning, Oreki makes a mental note to _dust the portrait soon. And maybe I should check on Mayaka_ , he thinks, pulling out his phone as he heads downstairs _._ Sliding it open, the notification bar pops up. _Oh, there was a news alert earlier…_

\--

All the while he’s up there, Chitanda continues her journey across Africa through space and time.

_‘But the Berbers, discontented with the lack of payment following Carthage’s earlier defeat, turned against their former masters. Joining other mercenaries, they rampaged across North Africa and-’_

She hears Oreki’s footsteps coming downwards, soft against the wooden stairs. Abruptly, they stop.

_Thump._

Something hits the floor behind her. Turning, she sees Oreki standing on the bottom step with the file and papers scattered about him. As she bends down to help him retrieve the scattered sheets, Chitanda notices his hands trembling. “What’s wrong?” she asks. The answer comes as the headline on his cellphone’s screen punches her in the gut, leaving Chitanda winded:

**ARSON AT SENGOKU PRODUCTIONS & ANIMATION! THIRTY DEAD SO FAR, TWENTY-FIVE HOSPITALIZED. **

Chitanda gasps. “Isn’t that where Mayaka works??”

He nods, his face a grim mask. _She could be fine, though. We don’t have evidence otherwise,_ Oreki tries to say, but a sick feeling is settling in his gut and the words won’t come out. He walks over to the TV, rapidly switching between channels till it lands on a news broadcast.

‘We’re live at Sengoku Productions in Tokyo, where suspected arson just took place.’ A reporter is on-site, staring grimly into her camera as sirens wail nearby. In the background, a tall building blazes, its flames licking the sky. ‘It’s absolutely horrific, maybe the worst national fire in a decade.’

Seeing all this, Chitanda grips the hem of her dress so tightly her knuckles begin to turn white, whiter than her already fair skin. Inside her, there’s a storm brewing. The reporter goes on about what transpired to cause this, rattling off the timeline of events, but Chitanda can barely pay attention. All she hears is ‘ _no survivors within_.’

Distraught, she turns to look at Oreki for reassurance, but he’s staring right past her at the screen. As Chitanda watches, he tugs at a lock of his messy hair, as if trying to decipher some mystery. It’s then that she realizes she’s still holding Oreki’s cellphone.

Chitanda’s fingers fly across the keypad, punching in Mayaka’s number shakily.

**_BEEP._ **

**_BEEP._ **

**_BEEP._ **

The silent space between dial tones lasts an eternity, filled only with her impossibly loud heartbeat. Chitanda’s eyes begin to well up.

_Maybe she’s injured, or lost her phone, or, or-_

Chitanda’s frantic rationalizations are cut short, as the TV broadcast switches to a screen showing mugshots of the victims. Amongst the numerous faces of strangers lost forever, Mayaka smiles at them.

She collapses onto the couch, suddenly exhausted.

For once in her lifetime, Chitanda knows intimately how Oreki feels, even as she watches him curl into a ball beside her.

The world turns a sickly shade of gray.


	2. Regression to the Mean

In his dream Satoshi is burning alive from the inside, under a leaden sky.

He’d be panicking of course, if not for the fact that this dream has happened dozens of times over the past two years. Again, acrid, cloying smoke the smell of burnt flesh spills from every orifice on his body- his pores, his mouth, his nose, everywhere. He exhales and nearly vomits from the stench, expelling more smoke in the process and starting the cycle over.

Eventually it grows into a thick fog surrounding Satoshi, filling his head to bursting and forcing him to his knees. With palms pressed flat against the dry grass, Satoshi heaves, watching through the fog as a building in the distance burns. There is nothing he can do but watch.

That’s where the dream ends, usually.

He braces himself, expecting to be catapulted into the waking world any moment, but something has changed. A figure walks towards him, parting the fog as if cutting a cake.

_Mayaka?_

She stops, standing there for years, or minutes, or maybe centuries, staring down at his hunched-over form. “You’re really helpless, aren’t you?” Mayaka clucks her tongue and holds her hand out to him. “Come on, let’s go.”

Before he can accept, Mayaka begins to stride away quickly. Satoshi rises on unsteady feet, grabs at her hand, and they run stumbling, tumbling through the forest of dead trees that’ve suddenly sprung up around them, leaping over roots and ducking beneath low-hanging boughs. After a while Satoshi begins to tire, but Mayaka seems unfazed.

She slips from his grasp.

He tries to cry out, but his throat is too parched for words or even noise. She is ablaze now and continues to walk into the distance, flames licking at her hair and clothes as she turns back to smile at him sadly.

He wakes in darkness with sweat drenching his shirt.That acrid stench still lingers in his nose. Half-blind, Satoshi gropes for his alarm clock on the nightstand and eventually finds it, its screen showing **4:00am** in bright red **.** Laying back down, he shuts his eyes and tries to sleep again, but half an hour of tossing to and fro doesn’t make him feel any more tired. He sighs and reaches over to open the bedside window a for some fresh air.

The other apartment buildings across from his are darkened except for a solitary pinprick or two, entire, unknown lives like his taking place within those concrete walls. Down below, the streets are silent. A police siren wails, far away, triggering a chorus of barking dogs. The waning moon shines dimly on this tapestry, and he remembers spending one early morning watching the sunrise with her, the heat of their bodies pressed close together. Despite the sweltering summer heat, Satoshi shivers. His remaining hours before dawn are spent watching the window till light pierces the clouds.

At eight, when the sun is fully up, Satoshi’s stomach grumbles and prompts him to start the day. Navigating around fallen, half-opened cardboard boxes and piles of books on the floor, he flicks off the fan’s wall switch to save electricity. Then, Satoshi makes his way out of the bedroom.

Halfway to the kitchen, he walks past a dusty calendar on the wall beside the storeroom. Satoshi stops. Today’s date seems vaguely important.

Placing a finger on the square marked 1st of July, he glides it across the dust-coated map of dates, searching till he finds a large red X with something scribbled below it in messy writing:

‘July 16, anivrsry of Myk-”

“Oh, right”, he says aloud to no one in particular, furrowing his brow. Satoshi dips into the storeroom for a moment and after some searching, emerges clutching a bundle of incense sticks.

He continues down the corridor. Just round the corner from the kitchen is a wall-mounted altar, where Mayaka has taken up residence. Her living space in that round metal tin on the shelf isn’t much, but _you’ve got no avenue to protest anyway, Mayaka_ , Satoshi notes, staring up at her portrait which stares back.

“What? Don’t give me that look. It was a good joke, right?” he says, chuckling. “Not like you should laugh at it, though. That would be creepy.”

As Satoshi lights the incense, filling the air with a musky smell, she watches him silently. Just like she did on _that day_ two years ago, frozen behind glass and unmarred by time or pain or fire-

_Dark-suited men and women, some with faces and hands bandaged, stare solemnly at the smiling picture of a girl who wandered too far from her hometown. Now she’s finally home, in a wooden box surrounded by thick clouds of incense. Oreki and Chitanda are there watching, too, and Oreki holds Chitanda for comfort as she sobs bitterly._ _Mayaka is wheeled into a steel chamber, its doors slammed shut._

_Now someone screams; now Satoshi’s heart has gone numb; now the wooden box is consumed by fire, leaving only dust behind._

Satoshi’s never been much of a religious person; still, he still mouths her a silent prayer, for all the good it does. Leaving the joss sticks in a bowl by the altar, he moves on to the kitchen.The first thing Satoshi sees when entering is the stack of dirty cups and plates piled up in the sink.

A lazy fly buzzes about, meandering here and there above the pile. It’s still buzzing and making figure-8 patterns in the air, when a long tongue strikes out of nowhere, reeling the fly back to a lizard perched on the windowsill. Satoshi wrinkles his nose and considers washing up, but then figures _I’ll do the dishes later._ _Besides, I’ll need to wash the plates I use anyway._ Instead he opens the fridge door and sticks his head in, scanning its rather bare shelves. No leftovers, just some measly-looking vegetables and a few slices of bread in a tupperware.

He shrugs. Change of plans, then. “Guess I’ll eat out today.”

A short while later he’s brushing his teeth at the bathroom sink, making eye contact with the rather haggard man mirrored before him. He grimaces, and the man grimaces as well. He smiles a plastic smile, and the reflection follows suit. Like some funhouse mirror, except revealing the truth instead of distorting it. _How did it turn out so messy?_

Satoshi turns the tap on and begins splashing water on his face. As he’s doing so, his cellphone rings. The shrill tone cuts through his thoughts. Probably just a salesman, or one of the lawyers handling the arson case. Busy wiping off flecks of toothpaste stuck to the corners of his mouth, Satoshi considers letting the caller hang up, but gives in after fifteen persistent rings. He quickly dries his hands, pulling the phone from his pocket on ring number eighteen.

“Mr Satoshi?” says the familiar-sounding voice, crackling with static.

“Who’s this?” he asks, adding “I’m not interested in buying anything, sorry.”

“Chiharu Yamamoto.” The name rings a bell, but Satoshi can’t quite place it.

“Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number.”

“I was Mayaka’s former assistant. You met me a few times.”

The word _former_ sends a twinge of pain through his chest. Now he remembers: a plump, mousy-looking girl, always trailing behind Mayaka nervously no matter how hard Mayaka tried to cure her shyness. She was there with Mayaka when the fire broke out, but escaped with only facial scars, a stay in the hospital, and long-term mental trauma **.**

“They’re demolishing the old studio soon”, she says with a hint of sadness in her voice. “You should drop by and pick up Mayaka-san’s belongings, or else they’ll just throw them away.”

Satoshi’s head throbs, as he grips the phone tightly enough to hear its plastic casing creak. _Should? Who are you to tell me what to do? Why do you think I never went back there these past two years?_ he wants to tell Chiharu, tell her that she’s just lucky, that Mayaka should have made it out instead.

But no, he’s not that cruel. Instead, he puts on that plastic smile and chirps “Sure, I’ll be there.”

\--

Half an hour later, after a brief train journey downtown, Satoshi arrives at the building that was once Sengoku Productions & Animation. 

The studio building, once bright green, is now a pale skeleton. The cutout billboard of its character Dango-san that once overlooked the parking lot seems to have gone missing too, leaving a giant _odango_ mascot-shaped white patch on the building’s charred facade. _I guess the mascot got fired_ , he notes with some amusement _._

A few construction workers linger around a tent pitched by the building’s entrance, some making notes on their clipboards and checking their equipment while others drink coffee. Satoshi observes all this from a few feet away **,** unable to get any closer past the yellow-and-white CAUTION tape barriers. As he watches, one of the workers spots him and lumbers over.

“A journalist? Ya can’t come in here without a pass!” he shouts in a Kansai accent, making shooing gestures to Satoshi and pointing to a sign plastered on the tent: ‘NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT. VOYEURS AND JOURNALISTS WITHOUT PASSES WILL BE FINED.’.

“I’m not, I’m just a-”

“I don’t care what ya are, go on. Get out, or I’ll call the cops” the man says gruffly, shoving Satoshi a little. Satoshi doesn’t argue, shrugging and stepping away to the parking lot.

Beyond the burly foreman’s reach, he continues studying the building from a distance. _Curious,_ the rows of trees beside it seem relatively unharmed. Or maybe they _were_ burnt, but sprung life anew. Too bad Oreki isn’t here for him to ask. Satoshi is pondering this mystery by pulling from his mental database, when a car honks loudly in the parking lot, startling him. He turns and sees a girl peering out of her parked car’s window.

“Hey! Mr Satoshi!” she calls out. _Who…?_

The girl gestures for him to come nearer.

Hesitantly, he approaches. As he draws closer, the girl opens her car door and steps out. On the right side of her face, a long burn scar stretches from her forehead to just above her chin.

_Oh._

Gone is the plumpness from Chiharu’s time as Mayaka’s assistant; now she is thin, with dark circles around her eyes, wearing a rather haunted expression **.**

“Sorry I’m late” she says.

“Oh, hey.” He waves to Chiharu. “I thought you were my landlord or something.”

“Landlord…?” she asks, staring at him as if he’d just grown a tail.

“Just kidding.” He grins. “But seriously, I didn’t recognize you at first.

“Oh. Well, I _have_ lost a lot of weight.” Chiharu smiles and gestures to her body. Before Satoshi can come up with another quip, she walks round to the back of her car and opens the boot. Inside is a large cardboard box. Satoshi reaches out and runs his hand across the box gingerly, as if it were a mean cat ready to pounce. Twenty-four years of Mayaka’s life, contained in a single box. _Is that it? Is that all she was?_

Not that it’s very different from her living in a metal tin, but still.

“We didn’t wanna throw anything away, so all her stuff’s in there”, Chiharu explains. “Well, uh, whatever could be retrieved at least. Most of the manga material got burnt up, unfortunately, including her ‘Wander’ manuscript.”

“Why’d it take so long to retrieve her things, though?” he asks.

“Police investigation. They didn’t let us in, tampering with evidence or something. Plus, nobody really wanted to go back to the studio for a while, too painful I guess.”

“Oh.” That makes sense, Satoshi thinks, but _maybe it’d be better if they never retrieved any of this._ “Well, thanks, Chiharu-chan. Are you still working with Sengoku?”

He notes the way Chiharu’s hands tremble as she reaches up to take off her glasses. She wipes the lenses using her shirt then puts the glasses back on, repeating the process a few times. Maybe that was a bad question to ask.

“I- Nah, I quit and found a customer service job. Pay’s not great, but it’s enough”, she says at last, leaning back against the car. “What about you? You look tired.”

 _You’re the same._ Satoshi considers telling her off but holds his tongue. “Been sleeping late recently. You know me, I’m a night owl.”

“Oh. I understand.” Smiling weakly, Chiharu places a hand on his shoulder. He brushes her hand away gently and moves to lift the box. It’s heavier than it looks. With a grunt, he hoists it out of the car but only takes a few steps before having to set it down again.

“Careful!” she admonishes. “Where’s your car parked? I’ll help you carry it over.”

He explains that he came by train, and Chiharu clucks her tongue disapprovingly, reminding him of Mayaka. “’You shouldn’t have come all the way! I could have delivered it to you.”

Satoshi waves off her concerns. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I didn’t expect it to be so heavy, anyway.”

“Come, I’ll drop you off”, she says, gesturing for him to get in the car which he accepts without much protesting.

On the journey back, Satoshi notes that Chiharu seems intimately more familiar with Tokyo than he is, taking detours and shortcuts through streets he’s never ventured to. She grew up here, after all, while he’s still an outsider even after a few years. He leans back into the car seat, wondering if he shouldn’t just go home now that there’s nothing left in Tokyo for him. But going home would mean facing _her_ ghost.

At a traffic light, Chiharu stops the car, and his stomach growls again. “You haven’t had breakfast?” she asks, looking concerned. Satoshi chuckles.

“I was planning to eat out, actually”, he replies. “Kinda tired of ramen and bread every day.”

“Perfect, I know a good bento place nearby. My treat.”

“You sure?” Satoshi asks, gasping and gesturing theatrically as if acting out some overblown soap opera. “I might order the most expensive thing and bankrupt you. Then Chiharu Yamamoto will have to take a loan from the Yakuza, and they’ll hunt her down, and-”

“Oh, shush” she says, rolling her eyes. “Just let me do this, okay? Think of it as repaying Mayaka for all her guidance, which I never got to do.”

They arrive just before noon at a quaint, hole-in-the-wall restaurant seemingly out of place amidst Tokyo’s bustling streets, its interior boasting only four tables.

Chiharu orders two of their specialty salmon bentos, and they eat in silence, making occasional small talk. 

Her new company is an insurance firm, he learns. She was recommended by a family friend and is quite happy there despite the lower pay.

She’s got a girlfriend now.

Her pet cat just gave birth.

He takes these facts and many more, filing them away in a dusty drawer but saying little himself. Satoshi lets her ramble on. In the end, he avoids being interrogated, save for one question: “How’re you coping, now that Mayaka’s gone?”

His cheerful mask firmly secured, Satoshi spins a web of half-truths and lies.

“Oh, I’m fine, I’ve got support from friends and stuff.”

“Been adjusting to a bachelor life again.”

“I dream of her, sometimes.”

She doesn’t question his answers - _or maybe she doesn’t want to-_ and continues talking about herself, even as she’s driving home later.

Pulling up outside the lobby of his apartment building, she offers to help him carry the box up, but Satoshi grins and insists on doing it himself. “I mean, we’ve got elevators. Might as well take advantage of everything I’m paying for, right?”

“Okay, if you say so.”

“Thanks for the ride, Chiharu-chan”, he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out. Satoshi grabs the box and is halfway to the lobby elevator by the time she calls out.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?” He sets the box down.

“Uh, we’re having the vigil next week. You coming? Didn’t see you there last year.”

Satoshi shrugs. “I’ll try.”

“Well, just let me know soon. I might arrange something with the others.”

“Sure”, he replies, already in the lift. As the doors close, he sees Chiharu waving and driving away.

\--

After a brief struggle where he pushes the box with his foot while using both hands to hold the lift doors open, Satoshi manages to get it out, and trudges on into his apartment down the dimly lit 5th floor hallway.

He drops it on the living room floor with a **_thump_** _,_ sending a thin layer of dust into the air _._ Sitting down across from the taped-up box, Satoshi contemplates it.

Whatever’s inside is all he’s got left of Mayaka _(aside from her ashes, and whatever she has back home in Kamiyama)_ , but dread overtakes him when he reaches for the scissors. Should he? Should the dead be dug up and examined? What will he uncover? He can feel a tiny worm of obsessive curiosity gnawing at the back of his mind and knows that if fed, that worm will grow, and grow, and grow till it becomes a dreadful dragon that overwhelmshim.

As he’s pondering these things, a helpful distraction presents itself: He hasn’t washed the dishes, which are beginning to stink a little.

The knight flees his dragon, and Satoshi gladly retreats to the kitchen. There, he busies himself with scrubbing out stains and encrusted residue, plunging his hands deep into a basin of soapy water. It works, for a while. But even as he’s putting the dishes away, Satoshi knows it’s only a brief reprieve.

Fortunately, he’s still got work to do, so he turns on his laptop and begins typing out reports feverishly, only stopping in the late afternoon with 30 or so completed pages. He runs down to the apartment’s convenience store, buys some Pocari and umeboshi rice balls for dinner, then it’s back to work while munching on those rice balls. After another round of reports, and a one-hour video call with his boss, it’s nearly ten at night. Satoshi yawns. He decides to finish the day by watching videos of kittens playing in the snow, falling asleep at his desk halfway through.

When Satoshi wakes up the next day, Youtube’s algorithm has somehow diverted his still-running video playlist from kittens to extremist political speeches. Satoshi grimaces in distaste at the sight of a man shouting about deporting migrants, and closes the video tab. He stands and stretches for a few minutes before heading for the bathroom. After he’s done, Satoshi figures he’ll go for a walk and maybe grab some breakfast.

He enters the living room. The unopened box looms before him like a gravestone.

 _Shit_. It’s a weekend, he remembers now.

No tasks to distract him from the worm and its steady tug at his mind this time. Of course, he _could_ come up with a million trivial distractions- dusting the windows, finishing up Kafka on the Shore, watching anime. But even if he does, the box will be there, calling to him.

Satoshi sighs and makes a quick trip down to the convenience store again. When he gets back, he immediately grabs his scissors and cuts the tape open, sitting down cross-legged in front of the box. He reaches into the maw of the waiting cardboard beast.

The first item is a framed photo of the Classics Club quartet in Hokkaido. Mayaka was there doing research for her manga, and Satoshi somehow dragged them along. She chewed him out for it, of course.

Next is a huge binder filled to the brim with Mayaka’s practice sketches, each marked with notes in the margins.

Highschool students tuning their musical instruments - **Improve hands.**

Five muscular boys, warming up before their swim – **Needs to be more dynamic**

A deer wrestling a man – **This one’s nice. Weird subject matter though, idk.**

A blonde girl clutching her umbrella tightly, dancing on a lake as petals swirl about her – **Clean up and frame? Maybe pitch as idea/concept**

Satoshi, leaning against a railing and staring into the distance – **Dearest. He looks better here than irl tho.**

He smiles at her snarky comment, then sets the binder aside and continues rummaging, finding a few anime figurines of characters that were popular during their high school years. One of them is a girl with robotic arms from Mayaka’s favourite anime. _Her name is_ _Rose_ _Everglade, I think._

And then, more drawings; some volumes of her manga; various knick-knacks; a box of business cards; an incredibly ugly mug that Oreki bought Mayaka for her birthday, each object a reminder of what’s been lost. The box is nearly empty now, and Satoshi sits surrounded by the bits and pieces of Mayaka’s life. He reaches in for the final item, a bright pink cloth pencil case.

Satoshi’s eyes widen.

The pencil case was his gift way back in middle school, to make up for their first major fight where he said some really nasty stuff to her. Surprising that she kept it for so long, really. It’s a little worse for the wear, the seams bulging from holding dozens of pens and pencils over the years. He unzips it and few pencils clatter to the floor. Satoshi leans over to pick up them up, finding a small pendrive nestled amongst the pencils. 

“Strange” he mutters, turning the pendrive over in his hand and seeing no labels indicating what’s within. “She usually labels- I mean labeled her stuff.”

 _Probably just more art_ , Satoshi reasons, despite the niggling feeling of dread tugging at his mind. The worm of curiosity is squirming, pushing back against his inhibitions. He plugs the pendrive into his laptop, and for a moment, fears he’s just bricked his computer when the screen goes dark.

A prompt appears.

‘PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. Hint: Our common password.’

‘Common password.’ Oh, it’s the one she always shared with him, because Satoshi is a klutz who forgets things easily. _What was it again?_ Certain he wrote it down, Satoshi rummages in the piles of papers on his desk and eventually finds a crumpled sheet with the password scribbled on it.

Mayaka was rather liberal with letting people see her art, so _why the secrecy_ he asks himself, typing in the password. The prompt disappears, and a folder pops up labeled **WANDER – STORY NOTES/STORYBOARD.** Ah, that's why.

‘Wander’. The project she was planning to start before the fire put an end to it. Satoshi clicks on the folder. Inside are numerous subfolders, each containing summaries of the story arcs. A pale girl _(clearly based on Mayaka, though she looks nothing like her)_ wanders far from home, chasing a falling star into perilous, unknown lands. He browses each folder, the expression on his face progressing from trepidation, to melancholy, to curiosity. When Satoshi reaches the final subfolder and opens it, it’s a sudden jolt of electricity.

The girl stands before a deep chasm and stares into it. Below lies the star, but she has no means of getting down, and monstrous creatures are at her back. Far away, in her village, her parents await the girl’s return anxiously.

She shuts her eyes.

The chapter cuts off abruptly.

On the next page is a scribbled note - Dedicated to the Classics Club, in that town we left behind. Kinda stuck on what to write next. Come up with rest of storyline later.

“Mayaka, what’s this supposed to mean? It’s unfinished, I don’t-” he says aloud, before the realization hits him.

Oh.

_Oh._

Satoshi begins to laugh, starting with a soft chuckle that flows into raucous laughter, making him throw his head back. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs till there are tears in his eyes.

Of course she’d do something like this, even if unintentional. Of course she’d send him back to solve a mystery, in the place he’s been running from since that day: Kamiyama City.

Typical Mayaka.

Satoshi shakes his head and smiles sadly, heading into the bedroom.

There, he begins tossing clothes into his travel luggage and gathering the necessary items- toiletries, his rather thin wallet, whatever snacks he has remaining in the pantry.

At 1’o clock that afternoon, he departs.

The Kamiyama-bound train pulls away from the station, and Satoshi stares out through its spotless windows at the Tokyo landscape flying by, replaced after a while by a countryside painted in fields of endless green. The train’s gentle rocking motion lulls him to sleep where he dreams of Mayaka in the clubroom, her brown hair turning to burnished copper under the sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bunch of references to Kyoani's works and stuff in this chapter, should be pretty obvious to spot if you're a fan :)


End file.
